Newnham Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are happy and content, skipping into this friendly and inclusive home-from-home environment. On arrival, new children show confidence and independence when hanging up their belongings on their named peg. Staff know their children incredibly well and have sound knowledge and understanding of the well-established curriculum. The provider and staff are flexible with the implementation of the curriculum to ensure that it is continuously accessible to all children.

Children welcome visitors by saying 'good morning', and children frequently play harmoniously together. Staff are excellent role models, demonstrating high expectations for children's good behaviour. They give meaningful praise for their kind and sociable interactions towards others. Therefore, children understand the behaviours expected of them.

Skilful staff successfully support children to build on what they already know and can do. For example, staff offer younger children their hand to hold as they learn to balance on one leg. This attentiveness from staff means children develop trusting and caring attachments to them. The provider and staff ensure collaborative working takes place with parents and outside professionals, such as speech and language therapists. This means all children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, continually make good progress in their overall learning and development.

What does the early years setting do well and what does it need to do better?

• Teaching is of good quality and meaningful. Staff ask questions to extend children's learning through their play. They also adapt activities to suitably challenge the learning needs of all children. For example, while children explore the clip chain links activity, staff extend on children's secure understanding of numbers by introducing a tape measure. Children start to develop an understanding of measurement concepts while developing their fine motor skills, as they enthusiastically start to measure their chains.
• Children maintain high levels of engagement and concentration when using magnifying glasses to examine bugs and then paint pictures of them. This is because staff plan activities around children's interest.
• Mealtimes are sociable events where staff prompt discussions around healthy eating and the importance of drinking lots of water, particularly after physical exercise. However, staff have not established sufficient routines to support children to think about how they can dress themselves appropriately for different weather conditions, such as putting on a sun hat before playing outdoors on a sunny day. This reduces opportunities for children to practise becoming increasingly independent in their self-care needs and promoting their own health and safety.
• Staff incorporate active and fun learning experiences that help children learn effectively about the importance of physical exercise and resting their bodies. Additionally, this daily routine helps regulate children's behaviour during the day. For example, children relax and take deep breaths as they copy staff who do slow and stretching exercises. Consequently, children who find transitions difficult are able to focus and prepare themselves for a change in activity or routine.
• Children demonstrate high levels of independence in preparation for when they progress to school. For example, children stand patiently in a line with their peers to choose a book, before placing it in their bags to read at home. They establish good hygiene routines and independently wash their hands with soap before eating, and they practise pouring their own drinks at snack time.
• Parents appreciate the daily information staff share with them about their child's day. Posters on the door explain to parents what activities children have been exploring as part of the current topic of minibeasts. However, staff's assessment of children's individual development and next goals to achieve in learning is not shared enough to ensure that parents can consistently support children's further progress at home.
• The providers are highly reflective and passionate, continually striving to improve. They have excellent communication with the link school, which supports seamless transitions for children. Staff report that they feel valued and really enjoy their jobs. They are given the support and training they need to ensure that children benefit from consistently positive learning experiences.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• focus on increasing children's knowledge and awareness of staying safe in the sun to help them become increasingly independent in managing their self-care needs
• review how children's progress and next steps in learning is shared with parents to extend collaborative working and further support their progress at home.